Confabulation
is a memory disorder that may occur in patients who have sustained
damage to both the basal
forebrain and the frontal
lobes, as after an aneurysm
of the anterior
communicating artery. Confabulation is defined as the
spontaneous production of false memories: either memories
for events which never occurred, or memories of actual events
which are displaced in space or time. These memories may be
elaborate and detailed. Some may be obviously bizarre, as
a memory of a ride in an alien spaceship; others are quite
mundane, as a memory of having eggs for breakfast, so that
only a close family member can confirm that the memory is
in fact false.

It is important to stress that confabulators
are not lying: they are not deliberately trying to mislead.
In fact, the patients are generally quite unaware that their
memories are inaccurate, and they may argue strenuously that
they have been telling the truth. Neither should confabulation
be confused with false
memory syndrome, the phenomenon whereby otherwise normal
individuals suddenly "remember" supposedly-repressed incidents
of childhood abuse or other trauma. Confabulation is a clinical
syndrome resulting from injury to the brain.

The exact causes of confabulation are unknown, but basal forebrain
damage may lead to memory impairments, while frontal damage
may lead to problems in self-awareness. Thus, the patient
may have a memory deficit but be unaware of his deficit. In
the example above, the patient was asked what he ate for breakfast
and reported having eaten eggs (a plausible but false memory).
It may be that, confronted with the question, the patient
experienced a memory gap, and retrieved a related memory about
a different morning, in which eggs were served. Being unaware
of his own memory problems, he assumed that the retrieved
memory was accurate, and answered accordingly. In this sense,
his answer - and the memory it was based on - may have been
quite accurate; the events simply did not happen at the time
he claimed.

Confabulation sometimes resolves spontaneously
with the passage of time; in other cases, therapy can help
the patient become more aware of his tendency to confabulate
and reduce the instances of confabulation.